h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*raises eyes to Death's domain*

*bites Sidney's ankle*

I'm just thinking of you Grim!!

beware
be very
ware

*nods sagely*

Do you lot know something I dont????

*nods sagely*

You know, secrets can be fun. I have secrets!!!

*nods sagely*

Are you having a fit!!!!

I believe the Grim Squeaker is having fun with his secrets.

And what good are secrets if you can't have fun with them?

I think that just having secrets is half the fun. The other half comes from delighting at darkly humorous ironies that no one else is aware of but you.

But it's not always much fun if no one but you is aware of them. It's more fun if just one or two other people know the joke.

True, there is that added, delicious exchange of knowing glances, isn't there?

Definitely. And when nobody knows the joke, it can get pretty depressing. Often in the middle of one group of friends, I find myself on the verge of bringing up an inside joke that exists between me and a different group of friends, and then have to stop myself and just sort of sigh, because the alternative is to make the reference, be met with blank looks, and mutter "Never mind." Even worse is when I have an inside joke going with just one member of a group and it comes up when the rest of the group is present but that one person isn't; I then find myself saying out loud "Man, I wish so-and-so was here."

I know what you mean. There are strange rituals that seem to develop amongst the co-workers in my office. Lately, this has taken the form of everyone greeting other co-workers by 'flipping them the bird'. There's a strange mentality amongst stressed programmers such that, when a co-worker walks up to them and gives them the middle finger, they don't question it. Next day, you see them doing it to others. Somehow, everyone just *knows* it's this week's big joke. Geeks are a strange breed.

Ah, instinct is a lovely thing.

Among my current group of cronies, inside jokes seem to be spawning at an alarming rate. Everything anyone says that's at all funny, provided the joke can be continued for more than a minute, seems to get referred to constantly from that point on.

Well that's the wierd thing with my co-workers. Nobody actually laughs. My boss walked in one morning and gave me the finger, and I gave him the finger, and then he just asked me if I got the e-mail he'd sent the day before. Like nothing happened.

Another bit of oddness (that I started) was getting everyone to call each other 'Jim' or 'Bob'. That one hasn't spread much yet, but it's almost instinctive for two or three of us now. I love stupid inside jokes like that. They're only funny when someone's around that doesn't 'get it', because nobody will bother to explain it, and nobody laughs when the guy says, 'Did you just call him Jim? I thought his name was Arthur'. He just gets the reply, 'His name _is_ Arthur', and then the conversation proceeds as normal, with 'Bob's and 'Jim's speckled throughout. It's funny, but nobody laughs, which makes it funny.

Oh, I can't explain it, it's 1:30am right now, and I'm beginning to fade. I'm going to go to sleep now. 'Night 'night, Lupa. Thanks for the chat.

That is very bazaar!! (spell checked it and it's right!)

What you are saying is true though...